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Revolution

I first met Jenny a couple of weeks ago at two in the morning. I had been working on my closing keynote for Topic Maps 2008 and needed fresh air and an early breakfast, so I tiptoed out of the hotel room, walked to the all-night deli a couple of blocks away and bought myself some sushi. Outside on the street, chopsticks in hand, I was approached by a nice-looking African girl who asked if I would like to go back to her place for a cup of coffee. I declined politely, pointing out that I had to get back to my presentation and, besides, I had a lovely wife sleeping soundly not 200 metres away. She asked if I would buy her a coffee and I said, “Sure.” I got her some cake as well and told her to keep the change.

She told me her name was Jenny and she came from Ghana. I told her mine was Shito (“pepper” in the Ga language) but she didn’t seem to understand. I asked her what “pepper” was in her mother tongue and showed her my business card so she would know why I was asking. I think she said, “ekhien,” though I can’t be sure.

Anyway, we talked some more. I was curious and I guess she was still hoping for some business.

She had been in Oslo a couple of months, having come from Italy where she’d lived for 8 years. I wondered how old she was and she told me her date of birth – March 18 1980 – which was weird because that’s my birthday too. (Birthday, not birth date!)

That created a kind of bond and so we talked some more. (I was still curious and I guess she was still hoping for some business.)

I asked why she had come to Oslo and she told me that she had lost her job in Italy when the factory she worked in closed down. She was the oldest child in a large family (7 children), her father was a taxi driver but he didn’t have a car. She was working to support the family and pay for her brother’s and sisters’ education. She wasn’t able to get another job, and a friend told her it was possible to make good money quickly in Oslo. It was her only option, so she came.

She was philosophical about her new job. She disliked it and felt shameful, but it was only for a short while, until she had enough money to set her family up. I asked how much she earned and she said it varied. “Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes not. I know one girl who met a Norwegian man. He gave her 80,000 kroner so she could quit and go back to Africa. She was really lucky. Maybe one day I’ll be lucky too. God willing.”

I was still curious and I guess she hadn’t given up hope, so we talked some more, about where she lived, the services she offered, the prices she charged. I won’t go into the details.

At length we parted, after I’d found an ATM and given her the equivalent of a night’s work so that she could go home and sleep – and my cell number.

We’ve met again since that and I’ve learned more about her. I’m convinced that most of her story is true, although she has later admitted that she modified parts of it. “All the girls do. You want to be someone else when you’re out on the street.” Her real birth date is not March 18 (although that’s what her passport says) and she’s from Nigeria, not Ghana (which explains why she didn’t understand shito). I’m pretty sure the rest is true, and I’ve spoken briefly with one of her sisters on the phone from Nigeria.

Jenny Towler was found
with a knife in her chest.
And Mack the Knife is walking on the quay,
but he knows nothing at all.

…

For some are in darkness
and some are in light.
You can see the ones in the light,
those in the dark cannot be seen.

There has been a big debate in Norway over the last few years about the increase in prostitution, and radical feminists have been agitating to make the purchase of sexual services illegal in Norway (and for Norwegians abroad). People who have worked closely with prostitutes for many years, like Liv Jessen of the Norwegian Pro Sentret, say this is not the way to go. It will only increase the risks for those – like Jenny – who are already most vulnerable, because it will force prostitution underground, increasing the risk of violence and the girls’ dependence on pimps and “madams”.

Unfortunately those who haven’t worked closely with prostitutes and think they know better are in a majority, and on Friday the Norwegian Government announced the introduction of draft legislation that makes the purchase of sexual services a crime punishable by fines, or by up to six months imprisonment.

I was attracted by the idea of blogging from the start, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized its true revolutionary potential. It is now clear to me that blogging (like Topic Maps and subject-centric computing) is going to change the world, and I want to be part of it.

I see now that blogging is part of the struggle to reclaim the right to freedom of expression, a right that the monopolization of the media over the last few decades has all but destroyed. It’s about ordinary people making their voices heard and starting to take control of their own lives; it is an act of self-emancipation.

What I like about blogging is its democratic nature, the way it allows us to bypass those who think they are in charge and think they have the right to decide what gets published. But we shouldn’t forget that most of the world’s population as yet is unable to blog. Either they don’t have access to the internet, cannot read and write, or, more likely, have to spend all day simply trying to survive. That’s one of the things we have to change.

We also should not forget that writing on its own will never change anything. The only thing philosophers get, as Tony Cliff used to say, is piles! If we really want to change the world, we have to get up off our backsides and join battle. David Weinberger was quoted recently in a Norwegian newspaper as saying that the Internet will make Obama president. I hope he is right. But if it does, there will come a time when bloggers and others will have to take to the streets in order to show the full extent of their support.

I shall be using this blog to talk about the things that matter to me, the things I believe in, and to criticize the things I think need criticizing. I’d like to thank Are Gulbrandsen for unwittingly giving me the push to get started, and also for stealing the title of my presentation at Topic Maps 2008 for his own blog. (If he hadn’t done so, I wouldn’t have had to think of a better one!)

My choice of title, Topic Maps And All That, is of course a tip of the hat to the Sellar and Yeatman book 1006 And All That. The subtitle is more than a tip of the hat to Steve Biko.

Topic Maps (ISO 13250) is the standard around which my life has revolved for the last 10 years. Getting its name into the blog title is (yet another) way of promoting it, but the real significance is deeper. Topic Maps is fundamentally about how each and every one of us – as individuals, groups or organizations – can gain control of our own knowledge and harness it to achieve our goals (whatever they may be).

From this perspective, everything has to do with Topic Maps, and Topic Maps has to do with everything – hence the “all that” of the title. I do not intend to write only about Topic Maps. On the contrary, of the 24 or so potential blog topics that I “brainstormed” on the flight to Frankfurt yesterday, only 5 or 6 have anything to do with Topic Maps. Some of the others are OOXML, subject-centric computing, Chomsky, tinnitus, Jenny Tauber (and her Nigerian namesake), the semantics of Bantu noun classes and Janáček.